Discovery: Gold Rush Alaska Series

Another interesting 'adventure' . Six guys, feeling the economic crunch, invest in bulky gold-mining equipment and head from Oregon to Alaska. Last week's opener showed a race to transport the heavy gear for just-in-time Seattle-to-Alaska barge departure. Then there's a tricky Alaskan bridge bypass, driving an overweight loader across a river to the gold-mining site. A bit over-staged here and there, and sure portrays 'average Joes', not expert miners or drivers, but the 1080i scenery and their mining exploits should help avoid the new season's HD dramas. -- John

They seem to be settling in, building a 'community' center, lining up their trailers for housing, even zapping a pesky bear. One of the kids left some crackers out that drew the bear, among many near the site. Prospects for finding enough gold seem dim; they're low on funds only one week into a summer's mining. Operations seem somewhat helter-skelter so far. -- John

With part 3 yesterday it looks like they have a better chance of mining some gold. Prospects seemed dim until they called in a mining expert for a few days to help set up all the heavy mining gear, and visted their 90-year-old neighbor who claimed his rig could provide ~$25k in gold with one 'session'. A month had elapsed without much happening. A preview part-4 shot showed a large gold nugget in the processed mud--likely worth plenty if gold was around ~$1k/ounce at the time. -- John

Yeah, expect they'll milk the going-bust thing throughout. With odds so heavy against profitable gold mining, hard to picture a happy Hollywood ending. On the bear shooting, recall some grizzly.vs. black bear discussion, but thought they'd tracked the one that entered the camp site. Seems poor judgment to fly in more children as they did, with so many bears around. Only spotted one dude with a gun slung over his shoulder. Haven't seen that 50-cal (!) pistol being worn either. -- John

Their second gold-nugget teaser preview this Friday showed an almond-size nugget on someone's finger tips. The previous teaser, also not yet explained, was a raisin-size nugget partially buried in mud. Next week: walnut size?

A young girl had a seizure but made it by ambulance and jet to a hospital, with apparent recovery. Speculation was the bug repellent DEET caused it, or their drinking water. Stunned to learn they're all drinking from a mountain stream without filtering or sterilization; camera captured some slimy decaying animal skin trapped upstream. And a last-minute 300-gallon(?) diesel oil purchase ran their camp/mining gear only about 45 minutes. Stay tuned. Next week maybe attacks by rabid wolverines. -- John

Wow, that's one unorganized, unlucky mining expedition. Friday's show revealed one dude merrily building a cabin instead of helping the gold hunt; another member, feeling dissed, hires onto a fishing boat--after sawing off a key equipment part on his own. And their vintage 'shaker', for separating gold, fell apart from mechanical stress, while the back-injured mechanic ran out of morphine as he helped repair the gear. Still no significant gold. -- John

Have to wonder how much of the 'conflict' in reality shows is manufactured. Others seemed fed up with the ex-realtor's exploits from day one, but his supposed fist fight (not shown) and the cars speeding into town to file the first police report seemed phony. (Reminds me of the stagged chair tossing and exaggerated father-son arguments in that bike-builders series--unavoidable from the endless teaser ads.) With the families gone due to inadequate funds, it's down to serious gold mining. Expected some explanation of the various-size teaser-ad gold nuggets mentioned above; instead, the latest teaser has shrunk to a Wheaties-size gold flake. -- John

^^^Agree, good explanations/diagrams of the mechanical gear, typical of Discovery shows. Hard to fathom, with so much dependent on that last-stage wave table, why they'd turn its operation over to the ex-realtor. Then the grandfather dropped its use and settled for traditional gold panning. Next week's preview announces they've been doing everything wrong and have to start at square-one again! -- John

Jaw-dropping to watch the 'shaker' expert point out all the areas--including boulder washing--that lacked water wave action and barriers to trap heavier gold nuggets and smaller particles. Seemed they got a 'basic' shaker that lacked key parts. Surprising they didn't ask the site owner, who gets a 20% take, earlier about setup details. Perhaps, in the "Kitchen Nightmares" happy-ending tradition, they'll mine enough to recover some costs before looming fall/winter freeze-ups. -- John

Looks like, after Friday's show, there's 2 shows left. With the equipment running somewhat normally, they racked up about $7000 worth of gold--prompting a fireworks celebration--but still have to mine ~$275K worth to recoup costs before freezing sets in. The mechanic and site-owner's old-timey consultant squared off for the mandatory reality-show conflict, but at least the mechanic wasn't shouldering his weapon--as when the ex-realtor left the site. -- John

They again outlined recent gold prices, up to ~$1400/oz., and a current New York Times piece details how both open-pit and deep gold mines in California have been reopened.

A curious shot yesterday showed black magnetite particles sticking to the bottom of a bucket with gold-like nuggets mixed in. Implication was that magnetic final processing of the many black-sand buckets wasn't reliable--even though that's how the compact gadget rushed in by its inventor works: (separating magnetite to one container with a magnet-covered moving belt, while non-magnetic gold falls in another). Had to wonder if the gold-like nuggets mixed with black magnetite beneath the bucket might have been magnetic iron pyrite (fool's gold).

Anyway, remarkable to learn all their buckets of final-stage black sand were nearly worthless, only containing a few dollars worth of gold each. Still, for their happy ending next week, perhaps Grandpa's long-sought glory hole, supposedly deeply buried gold beneath a guesstimated former water-fall site, might cough up its riches. -- John